“O, your mother couldn’t boss a day-old calf!” said Jimmy impatiently.

“Don’t you knock my mother!” shrilled Judith.

“Your mother—­” began Maud.

“Dry up, Maud, or I’ll smack your mouth!” ordered Douglas.

“No you won’t!” cried Jimmy.

“I will, anybody that says anything against Jude’s mother,” returned Douglas promptly.

“Aw, if you folks are going to start fighting, as usual I’m going home,” growled Scott Parsons.  “Every time the crowd gets together, Jude has to start a scrap.  It’s getting god-awful cold, anyhow, and I’ve got chores to do.”  He spurred Ginger and was off.

“Same here!” chimed half a dozen voices, and more horses were spurred away.

Douglas glared at Judith.  “Always making trouble!  I should think you’d get sick of it.”

“Let ’em not knock my mother, or my horse, or my dog, then,” replied Judith, tossing her head.

“Your dog!  Prince is my dog, miss, and don’t you forget it for a minute,” cried Douglas.

He spurred Buster onto the main trail which lifted gradually toward Dead Line Peak.  Judith, after a pouting moment, followed him.

Except for this steady lift from seven thousand feet at Black Gorge to eight thousand feet at the base of Dead Line and Falkner’s Peaks, the valley was as level as a floor.  The sun was setting as the two left the post-office.  Lost Chief Range, on their right, was black against fire.  The snow of the valley was as blue as indigo.  A gentle but bitterly cold wind rose from the east.  Prince, yelping, set off after a skulking coyote.  When he had disappeared beyond a distant herd grazing through the snow, Judith pushed her horse up beside Buster.

“Doug, am I any scrappier than the rest of them?”

Douglas, his cigarette hanging negligently from a corner of his mouth, nodded.

“Well, I have to be, Doug,” insisted Judith.

“No, you don’t.  You just look for trouble, all the time.  Why do you have to be?”

“Who is there to look out for me?” demanded the girl, chin in the air.

“Pshaw!  You don’t need a guard, do you?  Besides, what’s the matter with me?”

“Huh!  You don’t really care what happens to me.  I’m not your real sister and you never forget it.  I’m lonely.”

Douglas gave her a curious glance.  Was she, he wondered, experiencing that feeling of loneliness and longing which had been haunting him for months?  He wanted to ask her about it but he could not.  She laughed at him too easily.

They rode on in silence for a while, Judith’s thin young body sagging dejectedly in the saddle.  The lavendar twilight was gathering.  White stars hung within hand touch.  Prince returned to the trail and a coyote barked derisively from beyond an alfalfa stack.

“Douglas,” exclaimed Judith suddenly, “if I thought when I got married, my husband would treat me like Dad does Mother, I’d never get married.  Getting married in real life isn’t a bit like the books show it.”